Price action in major currencies was again subdued last week. With few tier-one macro data releases for markets to trade off the focus was on the reaction function of governments and central banks to covid-19 related developments. Only a handful of currencies appreciated by more than 1% vs the Dollar last week and no major currency depreciated by more than
Read moreMajor currencies, equity markets and the price of crude oil since 8th June – the cycle low in the US Dollar – have exhibited reasonably limited directionality, narrow trading ranges and very low volatility, with the notable exception of currencies in Latin America. However this is not a case of more confident financial market participants finding their feet, in our
Read morePart Two of this Five-part series of Insights into the UK economy and financial markets examines the critical role played by the British government, which continues to pump tens of billions into the economy via a vast array of measures, including a furlough scheme, to support household disposable incomes and ultimately consumption and GDP growth. Households’ limited opportunities to spend,
Read morePart One of this Five-part series of Insights into the UK economy and financial markets examines the devastating impact which the national lockdown – introduced on 23rd March – has had on domestic economic activity and the implications for the UK (and other major economies) going forward. Records tumbled in April, for all the wrong reasons, with the GDP contraction
Read moreWhile GDP data for Q1 are now “old” and seemingly of limited use, it makes little sense to forecast global growth in Q2 and beyond without at least knowing the starting point. We estimate, based on data for 19 major economies, that global GDP growth slowed to -2.6% yoy in Q1 from +3.0% yoy in Q4 2019 and to -4.3%
Read moreWhile the United States and China have not gone as far as re-introducing or increasing tariffs on each others’ imports, the war of words between the two trading superpowers has clearly escalated with Hong Kong caught in the middle. In line with our expectations the Chinese Renminbi has depreciated versus (a weaker) Dollar and in nominal effective exchange rate terms
Read moreGlobal GDP growth, in year-on-year terms, slowed to -2.7% in Q12020 from +3.1% in Q4 2019 and in quarter-on-quarter terms to -4.5% from +0.6% in Q4, based on growth rates in 14 major economies accounting for close to 90% of world GDP. Global GDP growth in Q1 was at its weakest in over thirty years, at least in quarter-on-quarter terms.
Read moreRead the full article here
Read moreThe BEA will release tomorrow its first estimate of US GDP growth in Q1. Consensus estimate for the quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted annualised rate of growth is -4.0%. If correct this would imply that growth in Q3 and Q4 2019 was effectively wiped out and that GDP in Q1 2020 shrank by annualised $200bn. The estimates span from -0.3% to -10% –
Read moreForecasts of the scale of a likely global economic recession and the shape of the recovery often give little thought to the economic variables being measured or their timeliness. Based on 4X Global Research’s own quarterly global GDP series and its correlation with the global PMI Composite Index, we estimate that global GDP growth slowed to about 0.5% yoy in
Read more